Last fall I bought a second freezer, purchased forty pounds of local beef, and started writing this blog. The idea wasn’t really to record every gasp of delight, which you can get elsewhere. What I wanted was to cook with all the different parts of an animal, and have a means of remembering what we’d eaten. How many times had I made something memorable and then, a few days later, had no idea how to replicate the experience? Blogging was a way to remember.
Well, the original forty pounds of meat was some fine Wagyu beef from Sweet Grass Farm, on Lopez Island. We were referred by foodie friends with a family connection to the farmers, Scott and Brigit Meyers. Not that Sweet Grass is some cult-ish place you visit secretly, uttering passwords. You can visit the farm anytime, meet the cows, and walk the pasture. In our case just a taste of Sweet Grass’ meat convinced us of its quality. So I upgraded my order to a quarter cow last fall and because of how these things work, the meat wasn’t ready until this summer.
In the meantime we dabbled with beef from other local-ish sources. We got roasts and steaks from Crown ‘S’ Ranch in the Methow Valley, which runs a meat CSA for Seattle and Wenatchee customers. We liked the farmers but thought the beef, which tastes of grain finishing, was merely decent. We sampled pot roast from Skagit River Ranch and it had delicious densely beefy flavor, and is available at farmers markets by the cut. And I contemplated but never tried beef from Sea Breeze Farm on Vashon, purveyors of some really lovely meat and dairy products. We also ate Oregon County beef from our co-op, a pastured, natural meat that tastes good and is priced fairly.
Our quarter of beef finally arrived this month, 105 pounds of young cow. The haul included scads of steaks and roasts, plus twenty-nine pounds of ground meat. The cost was about $10/lb ($6.50/lb hanging weight), considerably more than our half pig from Wooly Pigs, at $4.75/lb. So there’s definitely a cost, even buying in quantity. The paradoxical thing is that we’re eating less meat as a result of this project; many nights we’ll just incorporate a dab of ground meat into beans, tofu, or vegetables. I didn’t cook much with ground meat before, since you have no idea what you’re getting. But when it’s your animal, and using every animal part means lots of ground meat, well, there you go. I think we’re eating healthier, and the cost averages out over the year.
I’d be interested to hear what experiences others have had with local beef. Thanks to Finspot for posing the query.
9 comments
Comments feed for this article
July 28, 2008 at 9:32 am
Gretchen Z
I’ve been contemplating buying a portion of a cow and/or pig. We currently buy our meat from Thundering Hooves, a family run ranch that produces pasture-finished meats. I highly recommend them for their sustainable and humane farming practices, relatively low prices, tasty products and convenience. They’re located near Walla Walla but have a few drop off locations in the metropolitan areas and also “neighborhood buying clubs.” We’ve enjoyed most of what we purchase from them, especially their polish sausages (nitrite-free, essential for me as a migraine sufferer), flank steaks, ground lamb and pork chops (which probably don’t measure up to mangalitsa, but very yummy compared to your average meat-type pork). We’re not so happy with the ground beef, but that’s because we’d prefer 25% fat which we just haven’t found yet in pre-ground meat.
We’ve contemplated getting a portion of a cow and/or pig, but I wonder whether it is worth the expense of purchasing and operating another freezer. My one frustration with local meats is the quantity that is each package. As a household of two, who eat meat fairly frequently but not in great quantity, I’d like to defrost a portion of a roast, or just 1/2 pound of ground meat. Are you able to specify the size of cuts and the packaging when you buy a half or a quarter?
July 29, 2008 at 10:49 am
Finspot
Thanks for the “roundup” Audrey! I’d like to try the quarter cow again, especially grass-fed beef. Can’t remember if our Skagit Valley Ranch cow was strictly grass-fed or not. There’s definitely a difference, and if potential buyers haven’t tasted grass-fed first, they should, because most of us are used to grain-fed. I remember working on a dude ranch in Wyoming as a summer job, how my first exposure to grass-fed burgers came as something of a shock; they didn’t taste at all like the burgers I’d grown up with, and frankly, at the time I was disappointed. That was a million years ago. Other considerations have…um…intruded.
The other limiting factor is having freezer space and how you feel about being tied to frozen meat for a year. It requires thinking ahead, and while most cuts don’t matter, with some it’s obviously preferable to have fresh.
July 29, 2008 at 7:44 pm
hshaw
I’m with Finspot. I bought a 1/4 cow (yes, I have a mondo box freezer…) a few years back and it was grass-fed and all that, but those morons could have aged the beast a little! Grass-fed beef can and should be dry-aged for at least 10 days, or you will be tasting watery, bland meat that can’t honld a candle to a good piece of venison, or even regular beef.
But good, dry-aged, grass-fed beef is a revelation, and worth every penny of $10 a pound. Interview the rancher you intend to buy from. If s/he says something like, “I do things the way they do in Uruguay/Argentina,” buy it! The gauchos know what they’re doing.
I am not as picky about eating frozen meat as Finspot is, but then I hunt for all my meat, so fresh happens for a day or two after the hunt, and then it’s thaw time. You don’t really have to think ahead though — drop your frozen (vacuum-sealed!) meat into a bucket of cold water and it will thaw out in an hour or so.
July 29, 2008 at 9:36 pm
poppyandsally
Lopez has been at the forefront of a unique mobile slaughtering system – sorry, I know we don’t like to talk about the actual slaughtering – that allows farmers/ranchers there to raise and butcher truly local meat. I visited a meat market in Sylvana last fall and asked about their lamb. The butcher was totally candid about the fact that it was raised in the Skagit Valley, transported to California for butchering – then back to Skagit. So much for local.
As a meat eater and a locavore, I’m interested in the production – how and where is it all happening? I appreciate your putting this conversation on the table.
Sally
July 30, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Jill
I’m glad I found your post today. We were just recently in the Methow Valley and picked up a brochure on Crown ‘S’ Ranch. We’ve never purchased our meat like this, but want to give it a try. It’s good to hear first hand experience and opinions!
August 3, 2008 at 2:21 pm
audrey
Gretchen – thanks for your comment. I think by law if you are buying a quarter- or half-cow or pig, you must own the animal before slaughter. This means you should be hiring the butcher (at least theoretically) and should be providing your own butchering instructions. So you should be able to get exactly what you want. It’s been a learning curve for me, learning how I want the animals broken down.
Fin – grass fed is definitely an acquired taste, but like you I prefer it now to grain-finished.
Hank – great tip on aging the beef. I have noticed a difference between different batches of beef from different farms and I wonder if that’s it.
Sally – it’s an excellent point that where the beasts are slaughtered is as important in the calculation as other factors. Heath Putnam of Wooly Pigs talked to me a lot about how they slaughter their pigs on the farm, if you’re getting a half or whole hog. He says it makes a huge difference in the meat’s taste. Hank makes a similar point on his blog about animals he hunts – he reports that meat tastes no good when an animal is mortally wounded but can still run a ways until it dies.
Jill – thanks, hope you will report back on your experiences with local meat.
August 7, 2008 at 9:14 am
Poppy
Audrey,
I’m fascinated by your comment that you are actually eating less meat after buying a larger quantity directly from the growers. I’d like to move in that direction. It seems like you are consuming less energy doing it that way too. Thanks for doing this post, it is definitely something to think about.
August 7, 2008 at 3:32 pm
audrey
Thanks Poppy, purchasing and eating meat by the half or quarter animal has come to make more and more sense for us, not just in the anticipated ways like reduced energy consumption but also in raising the quality of what we’re eating. Both of the animals we got were slaughtered on their respective farms, and thus avoided the stress of transport and the changes in flavor and texture that can happen. We feel there are lots of personal benefits too like the increased variety and healthiness of what we’re eating, which does include a lot more vegetables. And buying by the quarter or half is flat out cheaper. I think you have to do your legwork — my sister-in-law once got a quarter-cow that wasn’t very good — but for us it has really been worth it.
April 20, 2009 at 11:43 am
what i’m eating « Eat Local Northwest
[...] *Local meat. Last year we cut back significantly on our meat intake for health reasons. That program has been temporarily suspended. These days eating animal protein is one thing that reliably helps me feel well. Without it, I’d probably be eating five or six meals a day. I love having part of a cow and the last of our half-pig on hand — there’s almost always something there that appeals. And, of course, I like knowing that the baby gets nutrition from pastured animals. [...]